Asked by: Jonathan Ashworth (Labour (Co-op) - Leicester South)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what steps his Department has taken to reduce the costs of error in the last three financial years.
Answered by Anthony Browne - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
The Department was recently requested to set out the steps it has taken to reduce the costs of fraud in the last three financial years: this response is provided in the Annex below. The Public Sector Fraud Authority (PSFA) defines the difference between fraud and error in relation to the dishonest intent of the individual or organisation involved in the incorrect payment. “Fraud” represents losses to the Department caused with intent by a counterparty. “Error” represents losses to the Department where intent cannot be proven. As the difference between fraud and error relates to the established intent of the counterparty rather than the activity itself, the Department has a single controls and assurance regime over fraud and error, which is set out in the Annex below.
In addition, the Department operates business-as-usual transactional and analytical controls to mitigate and detect risk of financial error caused by administrative errors.
Annex A – Parliamentary Question 22574 To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what steps his Department has taken to reduce the costs of fraud in his Department in the last three financial years.
Response provided on 23 April 2024
Since the establishment of the Public Sector Fraud Authority (PSFA) in 2022, the Department has been working closely with PSFA to implement the Counter Fraud Functional Standard framework, a common set of standards required by government departments to counter fraud, bribery, and corruption. To support compliance with the Functional Standard, the Department internally published its Counter Fraud, Bribery and Corruption Strategy for 2022-2025 to improve culture and awareness and build on the counter fraud activity delivered since the launch of DfT’s first strategy in 2019.
The following key activities have taken place to drive improvements in reducing fraud by improving detection activity, enhancing fraud prevention and building capability.
To support detection activity the department utilises Spotlight, a due diligence tool provided to departments by the Cabinet Office to help identify areas of risk and potential fraud and error. The department has also commenced a data analytics project utilising artificial intelligence to identify instances of fraud and error within high-risk spending areas. This initiative is providing comprehensive insights into fraudulent activities and errors that can be used to further strengthen controls and seek recovery of funds where fraud or error is identified. The Department’s contract management teams have furthermore increased their focus on fraud risks and detection, resulting in substantial sums recovered and returned to the Exchequer. Detected, prevented and recovered fraud is formally disclosed to the Cabinet Office who report publicly on these results across government in their annual Fraud Landscape Report.
On fraud prevention, a Fraud Risk Assessment (FRA) policy was introduced to enable accountable officers across DfT to take responsibility in ensuring that fraud, bribery, and corruption risks are adequately understood and effectively managed. The FRA process has been embedded into business-as-usual activity and has supported the department in identifying fraud risks, driving control improvements, and fostering continuous improvement in fraud risk management practices.
To build capability DfT has increased its engagement with the PSFA to enhance oversight, prioritisation of risks, delivery against counter fraud functional standards and sharing of best practice. We have increased our collaboration across the departmental group and across government networks to share lessons learnt, horizon scan for new and emerging trends and deliver collaborative best practice workshops, training sessions and awareness campaigns on areas of development e.g. risk assessment.
In 2023 and early 2024, DfT was one of the first departments assessed under the latest framework by PSFA for compliance against the Counter Fraud Functional Standard. The Department is now working with PSFA to take forwards the recommendations from this review to drive further improvements in the Department’s counter-fraud function.
Asked by: Jonathan Ashworth (Labour (Co-op) - Leicester South)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what steps his Department has taken to reduce the costs of fraud in his Department in the last three financial years.
Answered by Anthony Browne - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
Since the establishment of the Public Sector Fraud Authority (PSFA) in 2022, the Department has been working closely with PSFA to implement the Counter Fraud Functional Standard framework, a common set of standards required by government departments to counter fraud, bribery, and corruption. To support compliance with the Functional Standard, the Department internally published its Counter Fraud, Bribery and Corruption Strategy for 2022-2025 to improve culture and awareness and build on the counter fraud activity delivered since the launch of DfT’s first strategy in 2019.
The following key activities have taken place to drive improvements in reducing fraud by improving detection activity, enhancing fraud prevention and building capability.
To support detection activity the department utilises Spotlight, a due diligence tool provided to departments by the Cabinet Office to help identify areas of risk and potential fraud and error. The department has also commenced a data analytics project utilising artificial intelligence to identify instances of fraud and error within high-risk spending areas. This initiative is providing comprehensive insights into fraudulent activities and errors that can be used to further strengthen controls and seek recovery of funds where fraud or error is identified. The Department’s contract management teams have furthermore increased their focus on fraud risks and detection, resulting in substantial sums recovered and returned to the Exchequer. Detected, prevented and recovered fraud is formally disclosed to the Cabinet Office who report publicly on these results across government in their annual Fraud Landscape Report.
On fraud prevention, a Fraud Risk Assessment (FRA) policy was introduced to enable accountable officers across DfT to take responsibility in ensuring that fraud, bribery, and corruption risks are adequately understood and effectively managed. The FRA process has been embedded into business-as-usual activity and has supported the department in identifying fraud risks, driving control improvements, and fostering continuous improvement in fraud risk management practices.
To build capability DfT has increased its engagement with the PSFA to enhance oversight, prioritisation of risks, delivery against counter fraud functional standards and sharing of best practice. We have increased our collaboration across the departmental group and across government networks to share lessons learnt, horizon scan for new and emerging trends and deliver collaborative best practice workshops, training sessions and awareness campaigns on areas of development e.g. risk assessment.
In 2023 and early 2024, DfT was one of the first departments assessed under the latest framework by PSFA for compliance against the Counter Fraud Functional Standard. The Department is now working with PSFA to take forward the recommendations from this review to drive further improvements in the Department’s counter-fraud function.
Asked by: Chi Onwurah (Labour - Newcastle upon Tyne Central)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what steps his Department is taking to encourage innovation in (a) the Maritime and Coastguard Agency, (b) the DVLA, (c) HS2 Ltd. and (d) National Highways.
Answered by Anthony Browne - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
The UK Government has an overarching goal of making the UK a global hub for innovation, placing innovation at the centre of everything the nation does. We can see this within our Public Bodies:
The MCA is committed to supporting innovation in maritime. This includes:
- Taking an enabling approach to regulation of innovative future maritime technologies,
- Implementation of the UK Concierge Service and the My MCA technology platform supporting customers and the UK economy, and
- Empowering and supporting staff to explore innovative ways of working, including digital technology, to make best use of resources.
The DVLA builds its new software and services using the very latest methodologies and technologies. Examples include:
- It is a fast adopter of cutting edge features offered by public cloud infrastructure so it can deliver quicker, safer and serve greater numbers of customers than ever before.
- The DVLA’s in-house TechLab research emerging technologies, including how Artificial Intelligence (AI) can assist in building software to support motorists though their interactions with DVLA.
- The DVLA has used these innovations most recently in the development of its driver and vehicles account. When fully rolled out, the account will fundamentally change how the DVLA operates, allowing individuals to authenticate, register and return to DVLA services, view and manage their details, set notification preferences (including reminders) and seamlessly link to the services they need.
HS2 Ltd is at the forefront of innovation within the construction industry and has an obligation to incentivise innovation across the supply chain under the Development Agreement.
Innovation across the programme has made HS2 more efficient with hundreds of millions saved through an accelerator programme to fast-track technology and ideas into the supply chain. Since its launch in September 2020, the accelerator has supported 25 SMEs, raised £220 million in investment, funding and contracts, and helped to create 418 new STEM jobs. Two of the SMEs supported through the accelerator have recently been through an acquisition on the basis of their success.
D. National Highways
National Highways have an innovation and modernisation fund. The Department has provided £216m to NH for this fund during RIS2 (covering the period 2020-2025).
They will use it to research and develop emerging technologies which have the potential to revolutionise what it means to travel on our roads. They will also use this fund to produce new requirements and guidance for proven concepts, enabling the widespread adoption of innovations to modernise the road network. The fund is split across 5 themes:
- Design, construction, and maintenance
- Connected and autonomous vehicles
- Customer mobility
- Energy and environment
- Operations
The Department expect a similar approach to be continued in RIS3 (covering the period 2025-30) which is currently in development.
Asked by: Julian Knight (Independent - Solihull)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, whether he is taking steps to encourage local authorities to increase their use of artificial intelligence to identify the presence of potholes.
Answered by Richard Holden - Minister without Portfolio (Cabinet Office)
In England, local highway authorities have a duty under Section 41 of the Highways Act 1980 to maintain the highways network in their area. To ensure they fulfil those duties, all local highway authorities have an inspection policy in place for their highway network.
Aside from the current requirement to provide the Department with road condition data obtained using SCANNER (Surface Condition Assessment for the Nationals Network of Roads), the Department does not prescribe how other highway inspections are undertaken but encourages local authorities to consider new technologies to help them manage and maintain their respective networks. Many local authorities are taking advantage of processes and systems that utilise artificial intelligence as part of their inspection regime.
Asked by: Lord Clement-Jones (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask His Majesty's Government how many automated decision-making systems are currently in use by the Department for Transport, even partially, to make decisions that affect people’s legal rights or entitlements; and how many of those systems have publicly available equality impact assessments or data protection impact assessments or both.
Answered by Baroness Vere of Norbiton - Parliamentary Secretary (HM Treasury)
Various analytical systems are used in the Department for Transport to inform decisions that are ultimately made by Ministers. These systems are, however, designed to provide insight at an aggregate level; they do not pertain to any particular individuals and are not based on any personal data. They therefore do not inform any decisions that have an effect on specific individual’s legal rights or entitlements. Consequently, no Data Protection Impact Assessments or Equality Impact Assessments have been published in relation to these systems.
The department publishes a list of business-critical models that provides details of their purposes.
Asked by: Stephanie Peacock (Labour - Barnsley East)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what (a) algorithmic and (b) other automated decision making systems his Department uses; and for what purposes.
Answered by Jesse Norman
Algorithms are used in various analytical processes and in modelling by the Department for Transport. These inform decisions, but ultimately decisions are taken by Ministers. The Department publishes a list of business-critical models and their purposes. This is available online, at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/dft-analytical-assurance-framework-strength-in-numbers/dft-register-of-business-critical-models-april-2021.
The Department is developing an internal AI programme which will use algorithmic processes, for example to detect fraudulent grant applications and to streamline work processes. To date, none of these developmental systems has been used for automated decision making.
Asked by: Lucy Powell (Labour (Co-op) - Manchester Central)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, with reference to the Government's publication A pro-innovation approach to AI regulation, published on 29 March 2023, how much and what proportion of the budget of each regulator in their Department was spent on regulation of artificial intelligence in the latest period for which information is available; how many staff in each regulator worked (a) wholly and (b) partly on those issues in the latest period for which information is available; and whether those regulators plan to increase resources for their work on artificial intelligence.
Answered by Jesse Norman
The AI White Paper emphasised the importance of ensuring that UK regulators and public bodies have the capacity, expertise, and capabilities to implement government’s pro-innovation approach whilst recognising and understanding the risks. This is particularly true for those regulators for which AI falls squarely within their regulatory remit, but also applies to a much wider range of public and regulatory bodies considering the implications AI has across the economy.
The Department for Transport works with a number of regulators with responsibility for different modes of travel, from the Maritime and Coastguard Agency to the Civil Aviation Authority and Office of Rail and Road. As such, these regulators are responsible for overseeing the application of AI within their elements of the transport system and existing structures. Therefore, regulators do not all distinguish resource dedicated specifically to AI.
The Department is working closely with its regulators to ensure new and emerging applications of AI in transport are implemented safely and with effective regulation.
Asked by: Andrew Lewer (Conservative - Northampton South)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, with reference to the Lloyd’s Register’s report The Learning Curve: The state of artificial intelligence in maritime, what assessment his Department has made of the potential merits of the future use of artificial intelligence in shipping.
Answered by Lucy Frazer - Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport
The value of AI has been identified in the Government’s Maritime 2050 Report (2019) and Technology and Innovation Route Map (2019). Our goal is to leverage the UK’s existing strengths in AI and the data-driven economy to ensure that the UK remains at the forefront of the data revolution. The Department has created a dedicated Emerging Technologies Team and is collaborating cross-government, and with leading institutions such as the Alan Turing Institute, to ensure that the benefits of AI are realised in the transport sector.
To support the development of artificial intelligence in shipping, the Department has, for example, provided £169,232 through the Maritime Research and Innovation UK (MarRI-UK) Technology and Innovation call to the University of Liverpool’s safe port navigation project.
Asked by: Andrew Lewer (Conservative - Northampton South)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, with reference to the Lloyd’s Register’s report The Learning Curve: The state of artificial intelligence in maritime, if his Department will make an assessment of the potential assistance it can provide in creating a safe testing environment for safety critical artificial intelligence prototypes; and if he will make a statement.
Answered by Lucy Frazer - Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport
The value of AI has been identified in the Government’s Maritime 2050 Report (2019) Technology and Innovation Route Map (2019). Our goal is to leverage the UK’s existing strengths in artificial intelligence and the data-driven economy to ensure that the UK remains at the forefront of the data revolution.
Government’s key role in supporting the industry is to ensure that there is an appropriate and forward-looking domestic legislative framework to support the safe testing and use of artificial intelligence in the maritime sector. To support this, Government commissioned the Maritime Autonomy Regulation Lab (MARLab) report (2020) to identify barriers in regulation that could prevent technological development.
Asked by: Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi (Labour - Slough)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what assessment they have made of the potential (a) threats and (b) opportunities of artificial intelligence in respect of their Department’s responsibilities.
Answered by Chris Heaton-Harris - Secretary of State for Northern Ireland
Technologies such as artificial intelligence and machine learning have many potential applications including in the transport sector. Innovation teams across the DfT support research and development initiatives conducted both within and outside of DfT. The role of these initiatives is primarily to investigate the potential for AI in predictive modelling on transport use and their potential for using data across transport modes to support analysis on transport use. For the most part these are academic initiatives at the research stage and are not used in the implementation of policies. The Digital Services team also pilots AI solutions for automated IT management.
As part of the overall development of the digital and data capability with the central Department, we regularly consider the scope and opportunities and threats which deployment of AI solutions may bring in our work. When identifying options, we will often pilot and protype solutions to explore their full value and potential or may use alongside existing services as augmented intelligence.